Monthly Archives: November 2012

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Received a tip from Gini, another one of my good friends who is trained to spot interesting Christmas happenings and forward them to me. Last year, two enterprising Michigan (Gini’s from Michigan, so maybe there is a little bias) men installed a webcam on their property and created the website reindeercam.com , Santa’s official reindeer live feed, so that children around the world could watch the reindeer all day and see Santa feed the animals at 11 a.m., 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Meanwhile, in the background of their festively decorated pen, there is a ticker tape listing all of the young people who have written to Santa and reported that they have been “nice” all year long.

There is an app available for download ($1.99) so you can check in at any time.

The list of nice children is difficult to read and is a little blurry, but I imagine if you time it right, showing your children Santa feeding his reindeer is a big hit. I have opened the app three or four times, but so far, I’ve only been treated to reindeer eating. Not too thrilling. Looking forward to a glimpse of Santa.

The FAQ’s indicate that there are three ways to be included in the “nice” list, one of which is to donate to the reindeer feed. There’s an address so children can write to Santa and get their names on the “nice” list. There is a Facebook page, and on the website comments, both positive and negative, continually feed down the right side.

Started in 2011, the website received millions of visitors, and they’re back again this year.

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Christmas officially arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday. The Obamas kicked-off the holiday season with the grand premiere of the 2012 White House Christmas decorations. Keeping with tradition, Mrs. Obama selected a theme for all the decorations. The 2012 theme is “Joy to All”. This includes the Joy of giving and service to others, the Joy of sharing our blessings, and the Joy of welcoming our friends and family. We covered much of the history of White House Christmas in previous posts (February 15th blog, search White House).

This year there are 4 tress in the Grand Foyer. These are all decorated with ornaments representing the last 50 years of First Ladies. In total there are 54 trees in the White House for 2012. There are also tributes to our armed forces. The East Landing has wreaths with red, white, and blue yarn and trees with patriotic ornaments. The “official” White House tree is located in the Blue Room. This year it is an 18’6″ Fraser Fir from Jefferson, NC. The tree is decorated with ornaments decorated by military children living on military bases all over the world. The tree is beautiful and if you have a chance to visit the White House during the holiday season you will certainly love it.

To find out more check out the White House Holiday webpage. The page has information on this year’s decorations and the history of decorations. There is much more too. There is a nice video of Bo, the dog. You can download an beautiful illustrated tour book. There are details on the 2012 Christmas book marks. The White House chefs have this year’s cookie recipe for Ginger Crinkles. In honor of our troops you can fill out an Honor Card with a pledge to serve your community. There’s even a guide on how to build your own Christmas snow globe.

Some brief updates on some other DC trees:The Capitol Tree will be lit in a ceremony on December 4th at 5:00 PM. The National Christmas Tree will be lit in a ceremony on December 6th at 4:30 PM. The nationally televised event features host Neil Patrick Harris and a collection of music acts including James Taylor and Jason Mraz.

All that we have been waiting for is here: Jeremy and I want to post several times a day to cover everything we are seeing and doing for the holiday season.

Here’s a mish-mash of what I’ve been thinking about for the last 48 hours:

Changing my cover profile. Who knew? OK. Everyone knew but me. There are many, many beautiful cover photos to dress up your Facebook wall. I went to this article to get some ideas, but that launched me into a general search for more cover photos. I settled on two photos (one for me and one for The Yule Log)–both of beautiful shiny Christmas ornaments.

Improv Everywhere did a very funny spoof of Black Friday shopping. They set up outside of a New York City dollar store. The volunteers camped out in a long line and then stormed the business when it opened Friday mornings. Check out the YouTube video. I subscribed to their email feed so I can get up-to-date notice of their humorous behavior.

3. 12 Ways to Nerd Up Your Christmas Trees: This Mashable article has 12 photos of truly crazy Christmas trees. While I’m partial to the first (a Christmas tree made of books), check out the third Christmas tree–a Lego tree 33 feet high that was installed in London. Jeremy’s dream come true, for certain. (The bacon tree in this article is really creepy.)

4. Gold Christmas Tree? This one is in Tokyo, created by a jewelry store. It’s worth $4.2 million. I can just picture Eartha Kitt purring over this one!

5. Don’t even get me started on Pinterest. Everything is Christmas–idea after beautiful idea. I created a Yule Log 365 Pinterest page today. I’ll be loading it with this and that from today forward.

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This week our song is one of my favorites, Do You Hear What I Hear?. The song was penned in October of 1962. As I looked into the origins of this piece of music I was struck by the many historical connections beyond Christmas. 1962 was a year of much strife. The US was bogged down with the Cuban Missile Crisis and the world sat on edge at the thought of a nuclear war. The song was written as a plea for peace. The lyrics tell the tale of how the word spread about the birth of Jesus. From the night wind, to the little lamb, to the shepherd boy and then to the king who told it to the people everywhere. The two writers of the song were married but had a history all their own also. Lyricist, Noel Regney, was a Frenchman from Alsace that was drafted into the Nazi Army during WWII. He turned double agent for the French Resistance and helped with the Allied effort until breaking his arm in an attack. Composer, Gloria Shayne, was an American who grew up next to Rose & Joe Kennedy, and their son, future president Kennedy. She would find her way to New York City as a pianist where she worked with legends like Sondheim and Berlin. The song was tremendously personal to them and they wrote that the originally could not sing the whole song without emotion taking over.

The original recording was made in 1962 by Harry Simone Chorale (also known for an original version of the Little Drummer Boy) and was played often. But it was in 1963 that the song became a true hit. Bing Crosby released his recording in October of that year, not long before the Kennedy assassination. When he sang it in December on the Bob Hope television Christmas Special. The song brought some deep emotional response to the nation and everyone wanted a copy. Today there have been tens of millions copies and over 100 recordings. Classic versions come from the expected standards- Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis, Perry Como, and even Kate Smith. Listen to some of our interesting choices here:

We’re back for our first podcast after the Festival of Trees! We start off with a review of the last week and our activities. Listen as we discuss Black Friday and all of our adventures at the Festival. Next we welcome our special guest Lauren and get to the heart of our podcast- tasting! We taste cookies and fruit cake. The reactions are varied, so listen to hear more. Stay tuned this week as the Christmas season is now in full swing.

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Remember that on the 25th of each month we have revealed one of our secrets for the perfect Christmas in 2012. Today we share Secret #1- Love AND Family.

Before we share our #1 secret, let’s review numbers 10 through 2:

#10- Simple can be better.#9- There is always room for one more.#8- Christmas is not the time to bear a grudge, forgive!#7- Memories are more magical than we think they are at the time. #6- It doesn’t have to go your way.#5- Tradition, no matter how silly or bothersome, is key.#4- Children!#3- Giving time is more important than giving things.#2- It’s okay to forget.

Lots of thought has gone into what will be our number one. No doubt we will be spot-on for some readers and some might think we are way off. Thinking of that original Christmas we were inspired for our number one. Putting all of our secrets together and keeping the spirit of the true meaning of Christmas in focus, here is our #1: Love and Family.

That’s right, Love AND Family. With those ideas guiding you and your actions for the holidays all will go well. The original Christmas was centered on these ideals. The love God had for the world caused him to send his son, Jesus Christ, and his family welcomed him to humble origins. That simple family moment in the manger has given so much to the world over the last 2,000 years. Mary & Joseph loved the baby Jesus and raised him to go out into the world to make his mark. We must strive to make our Christmas one of love and family. Too much time, energy, and money is spent trying to do otherwise. Love will guide us all to make the best Christmas ever. Use that love to strengthen family. Family can mean many things. It could be your blood relatives, close friends, or even strangers. Families come in so many varieties, after all we are one huge family of mankind. Remember all your family at the holidays. Love AND family, that’s the key to a great Christmas 2012!

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We were back at the Festival of Trees in Timonium today, this time to celebrate my birthday in style, with many members of my family. Since we had Noah, we made the obligatory visit to Santa’s lap. Like many parents/grandparents, we were unsure how he would react to the stranger–in every family, there’s one year of the crying photo with Santa. This picture is of Noah telling Santa what Grumpa wants for Christmas. Quite an interesting conversation.

Santa arrived at the Festival of Trees the morning after Thanksgiving, as part of the preview party, and that got me to thinking about his arrival in malls and gathering places all over the world. We talked and wrote about the business of mall Santas several times early in The Yule Log’s history, especially on April 18. I briefly considered making a Mrs. Claus outfit, and Jeremy revealed that he, too, has worn the Santa suit.

Santa arrives in a number of unusual ways, and three days ago, in Reading, England, Santa was arriving by abseiling from the roof of Broad Street Mall when his beard got caught in the mechanism. He was suspended for 40 minutes until a co-worker rescued him. This is one time that an artificial beard is an advantage. I’ve included a YouTube video.

Current pop rock hit by Train is “50 Ways to Say Goodbye. On the internet I found just about 50 ways for Santa to say “Hello.” Here are a few of the most interesting.